BEFORE: James Marsden carries over from "Robot & Frank", and I could get in trouble for watching this one here. This is kind of one of those tangential love comedies that COULD play a part in making my connections during a future February - BUT it's really tough to say for sure whether I would need it then or not. It does connect two other films that seem like romances, but those are NOT necessarily films that I'll be watching the next time my annual month of romance-based films rolls around. So, should I save it for then, or watch it now? Well, I have to focus on the chain I'm in, I can't let the chain break, bad things could happen. So there you go, let's live in the moment, live for today, the chain currently being built is more important than the theoretical one I may need to build at some future time. I've got like nine months to figure out next year's romance chain, and a lot can happen between now and then, a lot of films can be added to the list and new connections can certainly be made.
THE PLOT: A reporter's dream of becoming a news anchor is compromised after a one-night stand leaves her stranded in downtown L.A. without a phone, car, ID or money - and only 8 hours to make it to the most important job interview of her life.
AFTER: Well, even if a movie is terrible, and I'm not saying yet that this one is, there's still a sense of satisfaction I gain by crossing it off my list, and then reminding myself that I'll never, ever have to watch this one again, if I don't want to. See, it is a genius system in the end, because the thing that's going to eat at you is the not knowing, being unsure if a film is terrible or not, and then spending precious time trying to determine if it's worth your while. Really, the quickest thing to do is to just watch it, I know that may sound counter-intuitive at first, but then you KNOW it's just a dumb comedy movie, it's not worth your time. See, I spent 90 minutes watching this, but that's a finite amount of time - spending days, months, years, just wondering whether it's worth watching is the real waste of time. I'll give up 90 minutes if it means confirming that the film wasn't worth watching in the first place. Umm, wait a minute...
OK, look, it's not a problem to hit a clunker once in a while - unless this keeps happening, and I somehow make it to 70 or 80 years old and then stop and think, "My God, I've wasted my life watching crappy movies!" and I've got a giant list of terrible films I've watched just STARING me in the face, and confirming the fact that I just didn't spend my time wisely, I could have been hanging out with friends, I could have had time to go out and MAKE new friends and then hang out with them, I could have spent more time with my parents... nah, you know what, movies are fine. Even a bad movie is time spent stimulating the old gray matter, or if it's really bad, that's time for quiet contemplation - also, I can even learn something from a terrible movie, or at least I can pretend that I've learned something from a terrible movie, and that's still something, right?
This is a film about a woman and what she does when it feels like her life is coming apart - it looks like the anchorwoman job she's been chasing is about to be given to someone else, and her live-in boyfriend has just moved out, so, well, let's just say that she's having a rough week. And then her friends want to go out to a club - initially this was to celebrate Meghan's new job, but now it looks like a chance to drown her sorrows. Even when she tries to sneak out of the club via the fire escape, her heel gets stuck in the bars, really, nothing's going right.
An attractive man on the street sees her plight, and climbs the fire escape to get her unstuck - they go for a walk and talk, hit it off, one thing leads to another, and they end up having, well, let's just call it a very successful first date. But then the next morning, she wakes up in his apartment, and checks her phone messages, the other candidate for her dream job has been eliminated, and she's got a second chance to try out for the anchorwoman slot. In her haste to sneak out of her date's apartment, she leaves behind her phone, then realizes that her car's been towed, and her purse was inside. I've got to call a NITPICK POINT here, her one-night stand drove her car to his place, but then parked it in a no parking zone right next to his building? How did he not know the parking rules on his own block?
Ah, he's just not a "car guy" - this movie keeps coming up with reasons why things go wrong, because that's kind of the whole point, it's one of those "whatever can go wrong will" situations, and he doesn't own a car, so OK, maybe he doesn't understand L.A. parking rules. And he was so nice to her, she doesn't want to wake him up, OK, I get it, but if a man snuck out after sex like this, you'd call him a cad, a douche, a bad dude with no manners. So we're just going to give her a pass on this? Just because she's got a job interview across town, it's OK to be rude to her new lover? If she had JUST calmed down a little bit, she could have waited for him to wake up, they could have shared a nice little breakfast, and maybe then he could have been some help to her, in recovering her car, or making sure she left with her phone, or you know, just general moral support. But no, she had to just run off in a panic, and as a result, she keeps frantically trying to find help or get to where she needs to be, and nothing seems to be working out.
She attempts to flag down help, but a couple of cops then mistake her for a hooker, because she's in a short tight dress, it's like 6 am and she's stopping motorists. Umm, sure, that's a simple enough mistake to make, but then WHY can't she just tell the cops that she's not a hooker? Because then the film would be very short, I suppose - the cops would help her get to the impound lot, or they'd help her get her phone back, and things would end too soon. By the same token, she gets caught up with some very friendly drug dealers, one of whom recognizes her as "that News at Five bitch". And they won't give her money, but they will give her some crack to sell - OK, there's just no way THAT can end badly, is there?
Time goes by, and more things happen - Meghan has a fight with a cab driver, Meghan gets thrown off a bus, Meghan steals a little boy's bike, and so on - eventually the cops start looking for her again, and by the time her friends track her down via her GPS keychain (is that a thing?) and she's able to get the news copter guy to pick her up, she's accidentally become the news herself. She has to report on the "mad hooker" who's responsible for the crime spree across downtown L.A. - I don't know, there were so many other better ways this situation could have been resolved. I'm not saying they'd be any funnier, but they'd just be BETTER. Look, the main story was initially this "Car-pocalypse" or whatever it was, something about a main highway that had been closed for repairs but was then suddenly going to re-open. She found herself RIGHT there when the highway came back into service - wouldn't it have made more sense to use the helicopter's camera to report on the situation, as "breaking news", thus proving her value to the TV station? Just putting that out there...
Usually, a "walk of shame" happens after a romantic encounter that somebody isn't proud of, but that's not the case here, she really connected with this guy, despite the circumstances of sleeping with him just to make herself feel better. But then if things had gone poorly and they hadn't connected, that would have been SO problematic for this film's story, because we'd either be dealing with someone who's not the "good girl" she claims to be, or it would be sex after getting drunk, so her cognition was impaired, and then that raises a bunch of other issues. So, no, they have to be a good match, the script kind of depends on it. It's only the appearance of being a loose woman that she's worried about - but then why not just calm down a little bit, not freak out and act casual about things? Then nobody would even care that she slept with a guy on their first date, they wouldn't even know except SHE keeps bringing it up...
This film totally bombed at the box office - why would anybody pay to see a movie about somebody just having a really bad day? They could just stay home and have a bad day themselves, for free. It's become something of a mainstay on cable, though - I probably programmed it after just getting sick of seeing it so much in the listings.
Also starring Elizabeth Banks (last seen in "Brightburn"), Gillian Jacobs (last seen in "I Used to Go Here"), Sarah Wright Olsen (last seen in "Made of Honor"), Ethan Suplee (last seen in "The Hunt"), Bill Burr (last seen in "The King of Staten Island"), Ken Davitian (last seen in "Once Upon a Time in Venice"), Lawrence Gilliard Jr. (last seen in "One Night in Miami..."), Alphonso McAuley, Da'Vone McDonald (last seen in "The Gambler"), Oliver Hudson, Eric Etebari (last seen in "Cellular"), Bryan Callen (last seen in "Warrior"), Tig Notaro (last seen in "Instant Family"), Willie Garson (last seen in "House of D"), Kevin Nealon (last seen in "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping"), Niecy Nash (last seen in "Cookie's Fortune"), P.J. Byrne (last seen in "The 15:17 to Paris"), Erin Segal, Chris Conner, Liz Carey (last seen in "Movie 43"), Brandon Scott (last seen in "Stand Up Guys"), Eve Brenner (ditto), Ian Roberts (last seen in "Drillbit Taylor"), Jerry Minor (last seen in "Let's Go to Prison"), John Farley (last seen in "The Straight Story"), Vic Chao (last seen in "Ready Player One"), Jacob Timothy Manown, Carol Mansell, Rebecca Brunk, David Winston Barge (last seen in "Zodiac").
RATING: 4 out of 10 songs in a lap dance
No comments:
Post a Comment